New Movies

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt The second section of Miguel Gomes’ Portuguese austerity odyssey doesn’t lighten the load in anyway, though at time it feels more engaging than the previous entry. This section features more nude women that play along with its fantasy elements. Unfortunately, two of the tales featured are more tedious than what’s come before it. Again the ideas are sound. The first tale informs us of a condemned man and how he arranges his guilt after many...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt Arabian Nights – The Restless One is the type of film in which you can easily imagine certain cliques chomping at the bit to discuss and lavish praise upon. However, if the film doesn’t hit the same sweet spot, you can easily see the same cliques instantly dismissed as some sort of Philistine. At one private joke. Almost as if they’re laughing at you. It’s hard not to think this. You just spent a good...

Review by Jack Deslandes Filmed entirely in one take, Victoria is a roller coaster ride of nail-biting tension and heart-stopping suspense that, if you make it through, will leave you bitter, cold, and gasping for breath. The story takes place between the hours of 4 and 6 am as it follows a young woman’s night, which quickly descends into a world of class A drugs and violent criminal gangsters. In a night that begins with her carelessly partying in an...

Written by Ellery Nick Escaping into the Welsh wilderness, a young couple takes a wrong turn in their car and ends up nose first in a stream. As luck with have it, the crash is heard by the only man for miles around who hurries to lend a hand. But why were they fleeing? It seems the couple have some secrets and they’ve just found a stranger with a few of his own. And so Gareth Bryn, director of Hinterland,...

By Leslie Byron Pitt/@afrofilmviewer The French original 2008 version of Martyrs is reminiscent of the delightful internet meme: Honey Badger don’t care. It is a relentless beast of a horror film. Fully assured of its nihilism and unrepentant on who knows it.  A force of nature that wasn’t for everyone, but turned those who were with it into devout followers. Now in 2016, America comes forth with a remake of Pascal Laugier brutal exercise. Feature one would liken more towards...

By Leslie Byron Pitt/@Afrofilmviewer Seth Rogan’s Christmas comedy the night before runs on a very defined “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule. This adult x-mas yarn has Rogan playing side kick (along with Anthony Mackie) to Joseph Gorden-Levitt’s Ethan, whose quest to find and enjoy New York’s dopest secret festive party, plays off very much in the way that you would expect it to. With varying results. There isn’t that much to expect and little to say about...

Review by Michael Ewins/@E_Film_Blog Over guttural bass and wobbly drum loops spill a barrage of localized sprechgesang, and from the other side of the pit, stomping boots and tributes of spit. This is what a Sleaford Mods gig sounds like - intoxicated, caustic, and very funny. But a Sleaford Mods gig is also what punk looks like in 2016, and it's not what you expect - disco lights, a laptop, and one bloke in a polo shirt flailing around as...

Review by Leslie Byron Pitt/@Afrofilmviewer The TV plays and we hear of a kidnapped boy (Jaeden Lieberher). We see a faded image of the kidnapper (Michael Shannon), then we see the man himself. He says little, but his expression speaks emphatically.  Quietly intense and driven. The boy is sitting on a hotel bed. Reading comics with googles on. The googles are deceptive. It would be easy to consider them as an item of childhood comfort. He doesn’t appear scared, nor...

by Miranda Schiller @mirandadadada “The Right to Happiness”, this year’s Berlinale motto, is clearly linked to the one most talked about topic in the German media this year: Refugees. Donation boxes for the Berlin Centre for Torture Victims in every cinema, various programmes to help refugees in Berlin, from free tickets to school projects to traineeships, are the concrete ways the Berlinale participates in the effort to welcome refugees. Even George Clooney, star of the opening film “Hail, Caesar!”, has...